After God created the earth, He told man to become fruitful in Genesis 1:28. But before that, the Bible says that God blessed him first. You may be asking, Bless him with what? With a garden that God personally planted (Genesis 2:8). But God did not just give the garden for man to enjoy, He gave him a responsibility to cultivate and keep it!
When I first saw this, I asked myself, Why would God ask man to cultivate and keep the good garden He planted? I assumed that that garden was close to perfect because the Bible also said that everything God created was good. As I pondered on this question, I realized that if you do not cultivate a garden but continue to take from it, that garden will soon become barren. But if you cultivate and keep it, it will continually provide for your needs and even produce abundance, an abundance that you can use to one day bless others with. For me, this last state is called the state of being fruitful.
As I continue to study the idea of business and entrepreneurship, I realized that the most powerful instruction God gave us to produce abundance is to "cultivate and keep" the gardens we already have. In simple terms, I call it "work and save!"
However, the ideas of working and saving do not really appeal to many people. Instead, most of them are in constant search for a way to get rich without working, and they would also say that they cannot save because they do not have enough for themselves. So people are always on the lookout for investments that would create passive income, which they will consume as quickly as they earn from them. I believe this mindset has made many Filipinos poor and has even placed them in massive debt.
While Peachy and I borrowed money from our family to start our hog contract growing business, we did not take any more loans to expand our business. Together, we decided to build the farm by using only what we have. We did this by working hard and continually saving. If we did not work, we would not have the means to provide for our needs, but if we did not save we would not have the funds to grow the business.
I realized that to "cultivate and keep" is a very powerful tool towards financial freedom. It is the means by which God gives us the power to create wealth and the opportunity to become fruitful. As Keepers, I wish we would teach these ideas to our children, the people who work for us, and even those around us. We should tell all Filipinos that we can all become fruitful when we continue to "work" our gardens and "save" our gains. While debt makes us a slave to the lender, savings will make us the masters over our future.
